BIENNIAL REPORT FOR 1956-1957 

 ALASKA FOREST RESEARCH CENTER 



No annual report was issued last year and hereafter only biennial 

 progress reports will be issued. This report covers calendar years 



1956 and 1957. Much has been accomplished in these two years. 



With the development of the pulp industry in Southeast Alaska at 

 Ketchikan and now at Sitka and with further activity scheduled for 

 the Petersburg-Wrangell Unit and Juneau, it became urgent that 

 research expand as well. Research has been needed in forest manage- 

 ment in areas not yet studied; the glacier front second-growth, the 

 raised beaches and built-up forelands of the coast to the westward, 

 especially between Lituya Bay and Yakutat. In the vicinity of 

 Yakutat there is a body of some 5^ billion board feet of second- 

 growth, some of it fairly old. These stands differ in many respects 

 from the usual second-growth of Southeast Alaska. Studies were begun 

 to show how they can be fitted in to existing yield tables. 



Management research on a small scale was begun in the Interior. 

 Plans are made for a new experimental forest on the North Tongass 

 National Forest where there will be somp needed replication of 

 studies made on the Maybeso Experimental Forest and in the Kasaan 

 Bay work area. New studies of North Tongass problems will be 

 started. 



Field work on the Survey of the Tongass was speeded up in 1956 and 



1957 by using small planes and a helicopter as well as boats. In 

 1957 only one boat was needed. All other field work was done by 

 combinations of helicopter and small plane, and as a result the 

 field plots were all measured by early in the fall of 1957. Compila- 

 tion work was also streamlined by IBM methods. The Forest Survey is 

 now turning to the Chugach National Forest and the Interior where 

 photography will be flown in 1958. 



Although forest management studies are moving along in Southeast 

 Alaska and the Forest Survey is on schedule, there are still wide gaps 

 in the needed pattern of research. Pathology research is needed. 

 Southeast Alaska's stands are old and full of rot. Forest products 

 utilization studies are needed, and in the Interior all phases of 

 forest research are needed. Our beginning in forest management 

 ■research in the Interior is only a very small beginning. It has been 

 suggested that until the Interior forest fires can be reduced from 

 over a million acres per year to a reasonable figure perhaps the 

 question of management methods is purely academic. After last year's 

 5 million acres of burn, this line of reasoning began to sound 

 logical. However, we contend that sooner or later fire protection 

 wil] be adequate and then proper management methods will be needed. 



